It’s clear from the Government’s various position papers on Brexit that the UK will be heavily reliant on technology for implementing new arrangements with the EU. But as well as enabling new borders, customs, security and data-sharing processes, there are also major opportunities for using new technology to harness the key opportunities of Brexit for British industry.

One area where cutting-edge technology could play a major role as we leave the EU is fisheries. Fishing is an extremely important economic driver in the UK, employing over 24,000 people and contributing around £1.4bn to our economy.

Current Issues

One major issue in the fishing industry is the current ‘landing’ obligation, which aims to ensure that all fish catches are properly recorded, reported and counted. Unfortunately, this is often not what happens now. The landing obligation has been notably difficult to control and enforce; with many vessels participating in harmful and unsustainable fishing practices such as discarding (the illegal dumping of low-value fish to free up quota space) and transshipment (illegally transferring fish between ships) in order to maximise the value of their catch.

In fact, recent estimates value the total costs of EU discards at approximately £1.6 billion annually, which shows that attempts to control the landing obligation have been far from successful. The big prize to be solved is that of Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, which is a €10bn annual problem, or roughly 19% of all reported catches. This is both a massive drain on the economy and a problem for sustainability and the wider environment.

At the moment, fisheries in the UK are managed under the EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), which fixes our national catch quota, and guarantees UK access to certain fishing zones. However, the UK’s withdrawal from the EU will result in its full withdrawal from the CFP, and present a major opportunity to negotiate an entirely new set of fishing policies – to help the UK fishing industry operate more efficiently, economically, and ethically. As part of these efforts, we will want to significantly enhance our ability to monitor activities at sea, maintaining confidence throughout the supply chain, and avoiding overfishing and the depletion of UK stocks.

Technology

Monitoring all activity across open seas is impossible, but with the help of technology, enforcement bodies can increase penetration and improve their chances of catching illegal and unethical fishing activities.

For example, projects such as ‘Eyes on the Seas’, which uses satellite technology and virtual watch rooms to track vessel movements, coupled with algorithms to automatically flag signs of suspicious behaviour, can help detect illegal or suspicious fishing activity in real-time.

“There is an immense opportunity to transform the way we run our fishing industry…”

There are also a number of UK entrepreneurs who are devising technological solutions to increase efficiency and compliance: two brothers have developed iCatch, which allows fishermen to submit their IFCA shellfish returns via an app.

Aquafarms are discussed widely as a means to sustainably provide food for the population in the future, with some commentators predicting that they will overshadow traditional fishing as the primary means by which we obtain fish for consumption.

However, even these closed environments require a great deal of monitoring, to avoid poisoning and disease outbreak. Technology in aquafarms has already been successfully used to provide smart, automatic monitoring of the composition of seawater environments. For instance, ‘smart cages’ can monitor pesticides and pollutants in aquafarms. Similarly, robotics equipped with biosensors can mimic the appearance and movement of real fish, and change their swimming patterns in response to environmental stimuli (a cool example is ‘iTuna’, a fully-autonomous bionic fish).

This is just a flavour, but there is an immense opportunity to transform the way we run our fishing industry – and it’s great to see Michael Gove’s department putting so much thought into our future arrangements. We’re most excited by how emerging technology can enable a more sustainable and ethical industry, and help us to ensure everyone is playing by the same (fair) rules – and we look forward to seeing more of the great things the government is planning this year.

Want to explore how Brexit might affect the GovTech market? Join us at The GovTechSummit in Paris on 12 November 2018 to bring entrepreneurs to the public sector!